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Witierica Summoned tO a Roly llUar 



Srliurrrb in tije Qlljttwl! of tljr £;ii|il;ang 
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J^alm f'UttJiag mning, April 1, 191 f 
on lljf fu? of ti|p Aaambling of OIoogrrHS 

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lhit@ House. 



A SERMON 



''And I rose up and said unto the nohles, and to the 
rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid 
of them; remember the Lord, which is great and ter- 
rible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your 
daughters, your wives and your houses.'' 
^ — Nehemiali IV, 14. 



THE function of the ancient Jewish prophet was by 
no means limited to moral and religious instruc- 
tion Both the national and international interests ot 
his people claimed his attention and were made the 
subject of his counsel. He did not hesitate to criticize 
the public policy of the government. He would some- 
times denounce a proposed alliance with some other 
nation. On the other hand, he would advocate an al- 
liance which he deemed wise and safe. Scanning the 
horizon from his prophetic watch-tower, he would warn 
the king and people of approaching danger to the 
nation, and when a foreign enemy threatened invasion 
of the land, he would lift up his voice m the name ot 
the Lord God as a divine messenger to rouse the people 
to prepare for war and to resist oppression. The two 
great principles which informed and inspired his 
prophetic utterances were liberty and justice— political 
liberty and social justice. Moses on the mountain top, 
lifting up his hands in prayer to the Lord of Hosts, 
while Joshua and the Hebrew warriors fought with 
Amalek in the plain below, presents a picture typical 
of the function of the Israelitish prophet. 

Our text gives us a striking example of the place 
which the Prophet held among the people of God. 
Nehemiah, engaged with his people in rebuilding of 
the walls of Jerusalem, having received intelligence of 
the approach of hostile bands designing to attack 
them, addresses himself to the nobles and rulers and 
the rest of the people, as follows: ^'Be not ye afraid 



4 



of them; remember the Lord, which is great and ter- 
rible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your 
daughters, your wives and your houses." 

The circumstances under which we meet today, my 
brethren, are not dissimilar to those which confronted 
the Jewish leader and his people on this occasion. A 
powerful and unscrupulous foe beyond the seas is levy- 
ing war upon the United States, sinking our ships, 
murdering our citizens without mercy, forbidding our 
merchantmen the freedom of the seas, secretly plotting 
an alliance with Mexico and Japan against our national 
integrity. 

^ What now is the duty of the Christian minister to 
his people and to the public in this crisis % The answer 
in my opinion cannot be doubtful. He should say to 
them as Nehemiah said, '^Be not ye afraid of them; 
remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and 
fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, 
your wives and your houses." Yes, I hold that he who 
speaks for God should not be dumb at such a moment, 
that he should not avoid discussing the national crisis 
as if it lay outside his vocation as a minister of Christ. 
Equally do I repudiate the counsel of the pacifists who 
falsely invoke the Christian religion on behalf of the 
policy of non-resistance, who maintain indeed that war 
is never justifiable and that no Christian man can con- 
sistently take any part in war, even in repelling the 
invasion of his country. No, there is no basis in the 
Bible for cowardly submission to tyranny or invasion. 
On the contrary, the Bible everywhere exhorts us to 
stand for righteousness and justice and liberty, and 
to resist tyranny and wrong. Listen to the words of 
another of the ancient prophets : ' ' He that dasheth in 
pieces has come up before thy face ; keep the munition, 
watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power 
mightily. ' ' Nahum II, 1. 

^ The ancient worthies whose examples are set before 
us in Holy Writ, the heroes and martyrs of the Chris- 
tian Church, have ever displayed a firm resolve to re- 
sist the invader and the oppressor, and to stand bravely 
for human rights and for national safety. 



5 



^ These pacifists have as little of the spirit of manly 
religion as they have of true patriotism. They would 
have taken the sword from the hands of Judas Mac- 
cabeus when he drew it in defence of his country 
against the unspeakable tyranny of Antiochus Epiph- 
anes ! They would have snatched the pen from Thomas 
Jefferson and John Hancock and George Washington 
when they came forward to sign the Declaration of 
Independence! They would have sent the embattled 
farmers home from Concord and Bunker Hill! They 
would have preached submission at Valley Forge ! 

Let me say then, as plainly and as strongly as I can, 
speaking as a minister of Christ, speaking as a mes- 
senger of God, speaking with a solemn sense of the 
obligations of my sacred office, speaking in the sanc- 
tuary of Christ, and with a full sense of my accounta- 
bility for every word I utter in this holy place, — that 
it is the high and sacred duty of the American people 
to take up the gage of battle which Germany has 
thrown down to us and to prosecute the war against 
her with all our energy and with every resource at our 
command — not hesitatingly, not half-heartedly, but 
with all our hearts and with every pound of energy at 
our command, realizing the vest interests at stake, the 
tremendous consequences for weal or woe dependent 
upon its issue. 

The Christ who smote with the sword of his mouth 
the hypocrites who oppressed the widows and orphans 
in his day would not rebuke the United States for 
drawing the sword in defence of innocent, helpless 
women and girls from the outrages of a brutal soldiery. 
The Christ who before Pontius Pilate declared that if 
His kingdom were of this world His soldiers would 
fight, would not condemn the United States which is a 
government of this world for sending forth her armies 
to defend the cause of justice and humanity. The 
Christ who used physical violence to cleanse the temple 
will not rebuke the United States for using the vio- 
lence of war to cleanse the earth of the foul domination 
of this ruthless nation which stops at no outrage in its 
vast attempt to establish dominion over the whole 
earth. The Christ who is the King of Righteousness 



6 



will not condemn this Republic for taking her place in 
the ranks of the peoples who are so nobly battling for 
right and justice in the earth. The Christ who is 
''first King of Righteousness and then King of Peace" 
will surely approve of our resolve to recognize no 
peace which is not founded on justice and equity. 

There are several considerations of great moment to 
which I desire to invite your attention. I beg of you 
in the first place to realize the colossal proportions and 
the ultimate aim of this tremendous war. It is not 
merely an European War — it is not merely a strife 
against England and France and Russia and Italy. It 
is the culmination of a long prepared effort to establish 
a Pan-German Empire, with no less an object than the 
Prussianization of the world. With all the formidable 
tenacity and methodical thoroughness which charac- 
terize the Prussian people, this gigantic plot has been 
steadily pushed for more than twenty years past. The 
plan is clearly mapped out in a book by Otto Tannen- 
berg, called ''The Greater Germany, the Work of the 
Twentieth Century", which appeared at Leipsic in the 
year 1911. In this book we have an exact program of 
the seizures to be effected in Europe and Turkey with 
the purpose of establishing an empire extending from 
Hamburg through Constantinople and Bagdad to the 
Persian Gulf. 

This stupendous project to which the German leaders 
long ago committed themselves, plans to make Ger- 
many master of Austria, of the Balkans, of Turkey in 
Europe, of Turkey in Asia, and to extend its power 
to the very Persian Gulf itself. But even this is not 
the full extent of the boundless ambition of the Em- 
peror and his . satellites. Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopo- 
tamia, Palestine, Western Asia and the greater part of 
Arabia would pass under the absolute protectorate of 
the German Empire. 

Tannenberg further advocates territorial acquisi- 
tions in Africa, in Oceania and in America, as the per- 
fectly logical consequence of the accomplishment of the 
Hamburg to the Persian Gulf project. In America his 
plan embraced the seizure of Brazil, Paraguay, Uru- 
guay, Argentina and Chili. These are his words: 



7 



German South America will provide for us in the 
temperate zone a colonial region where our immigrants 
will be able to settle as farmers. Chili and Argentina 
will preserve their language and their autonomy, but 
we shall require that in the schools German shall be 
taught as a second language. Southern Brazil, Para- 
guay and Uruguay are countries of German culture; 
German will there be the National tongue. ' ' ( See * ' The 
Pan-German Plot Unmasked," p. 105, by Andre 
Cheradame.) 

This book of Tannenberg's is only one of a group, 
which reveal the boundless ambition of the Emperor 
and his counsellors. It makes it very plain that this 
immense war, the most tremendous that the world has 
ever known, concerns us in the United States in a very 
real and direct fashion. 

But it is not only the vast schemes of Pan-German- 
ism that bring the United States into relation with this 
immense war. It is not only that the conquest of 
Europe and of Asia Minor would be preliminary to 
conquests in the Western Hemisphere which Germany 
has in view, but it is the great principles which are 
really involved in this conflict that chiefly concern us. 
It might be said. Why should not the German Empire 
become so vast as to realize this dream of Pan-Ger- 
manism? might it not be better for the world to be 
under the government of such a power as Germany? 
might not her immense efficiency in every sphere of 
life and activity be a great advantage to the nations 
brought under her sway? But, my friends, as you well 
know, there is another aspect to this question. The na- 
tions engaged in this great conflict represent certain 
principles of immense importance, — fundamental prin- 
ciples mutually antagonistic, great ideals of a totally 
opposite character. It is not merely a struggle for 
territory, for power, for economic and commercial ad- 
vantage, for the markets of the world, for the nerves of 
commerce and business. No, beyond all this, it is a 
conflict between irresponsible autocracy on the one 
hand and ordered liberty on the other. Germany 
stands for the autocrat, for the suppression of in- 
dividuality, for the repression of liberty, for the re- 



8 



fusal of really representative government. England 
and France, and now Eussia herself, stand for tke 
great principles of democracy, of liberty and justice 
and representative government, for freedom of speech 
and of the press, for freedom of conscience, for the 
real freedom of the seas. These are the chief prin- 
ciples at stake. This is the real significance of this 
vast and tremendous conflict. This is, above all, the 
reason why the great Republic of America and every 
patriotic citizen within her vast borders, is vitally in- 
terested in the issue of this war. This is why, even if 
we were not challenged to war by Grermany as we are 
today, it would be at once our highest interest and our 
most sacred duty to take our part, with all the force 
that we can exert, with all the resources at our com- 
mand, on the side of these liberty-loving peoples who 
have drawn the sword in the defence of human rights, 
yes, of humanity itself. 

I tell you, my friends, our liberties are involved in 
the issue of this struggle; our freedom as a nation, 
our existence as a democratic representative govern- 
ment. If Germany triumphs, woe to American inde- 
pendence, woe to American ideals, woe to American 
peace and happiness ! 

But I take higher ground. I call upon America 
to recognize the S. 0. S. call of our brothers in 
France and England and Russia and Italy, to save 
them from the peril of Prussianism, to take our 
stand at their side in the defence of liberty and civili- 
zation and humanity, not for anything that we can gain, 
not even to protect anything that we might lose, but 
for the love of those great principles which we have 
received as a heritage from our fathers, and which it 
is our solemn and sacred duty to defend, if need be, 
jwith the last drop of our blood. For I beg you to 
realize that the responsibility of this awful war rests 
upon the military leaders of Prussia. The attempts to 
make England or France or Russia responsible for 
it have absolutely failed. The pretexts upon which 
these attempts were built up, have been torn to tatters, 
not a shred of fact remains at this day. It has passed 
into history beyond the possibility of revision, that the 



9 



Prussian power has been preparing for this war for 
many years, that it has been precipitated in the fulfil- 
ment of a vast and ambitious scheme which has no 
parallel in history. It is now seen that for more than 
twenty years Germany has been spinning her webs in 
all neutral countries. She had set on foot a world- 
wide propaganda which is Avithout precedent in its im- 
mensity. The whole ambitious scheme presents a 
phenomenon without a parallel in the records of time. 
She chose the means and the moment for precipitating 
a war upon Europe, and so well were her schemes laid 
that they almost succeeded. It is also now an indis- 
putable fact that England, France, and Russia have 
been dragged into this war against their will, and they 
are fighting not for territorial aggrandizement but for 
liberty and international justice. 

Furthermore, I beg you to remember that those 
heroic soldiers of France and England and Eussia are 
really fighting our battles. They are shedding their 
blood for the great principles upon which our Republic 
rests. They are fighting with such magnificent self- 
sacrifice for democracy and liberty and international 
justice. Those blood-soaked trenches across the whole 
breadth of Europe, are the breakwater that is keeping 
back the flood of tyranny that would otherwise sweep 
away the foundations upon which the fabric of our in- 
dependence and of our rights and liberties, rests. Yes, 
the Armies of the Allies are really safeguarding the 
future of this great Republic. This is not a rash state- 
ment or an ill-considered opinion. It is the firm con- 
viction of many of our best thinkers, who clearly 
understand that the victory of Germany would un- 
questionably mean serious peril to the independence of 
the United States. Listen to these words of ex-Presi- 
dent Eliot of Harvard University: ''The quickest, 
the best, the surest means for Americans to defend 
themselves against a German invasion is to conclude 
with Prance and England a permanent alliance, of- 
fensive and defensive, having for its aim the mainte- 
nance of the freedom of the seas for the Allies and re- 
sistance to any maritime attack. It is time for all 
Americans to take sides openly with the European 



10 



peoples that for so many long months have been stand- 
ing np against the military despotism of Prussia. ' ' 

It would be easy to quote the utterances of prominent 
Germans, to the same effect ; for instance, this : ' ' Some 
months after we have done our business in Europe, 
we shall take New York and probably Washington"; 
and this: ^'We shall extract one or two billions of 
dollars from New York and other points." (Admiral 
von Goetzen.) 

I offer a third consideration which should have a 
powerful influence in deciding our duty at this critical 
moment. Let me say to you, my friends, that if the 
Congress of the United States, which assembles to- 
morrow, shall recognize the fact that Germany has 
long been committing acts of war against this country, 
and is in fact at war with us at this hour, sinking our 
ships and murdering our citizens and plotting against 
the integrity of our national domain, and shall there- 
fore declare war against Germany in self-defence, it 
will not only be a justifiable war, a war which we have 
not provoked, a war which we have not desired and 
do not desire, a war having in it no ulterior purpose of 
aggression or aggrandizement, — solely and purely a 
war to vindicate our national honor and to protect the 
rights and liberties of our people — ^but beyond and 
above all this, it will be in the highest sense of the 
word a Holy war, a war to save all that is best and 
holiest in civilization, a war to save mankind from the 
dominance of an evil and malign power which has 
shown itself during more than two years of conflict, to 
be destitute not only of all sense of honor and truth 
and loyalty to its plighted faith, but destitute also of 
humanity and mercy and of all regard for the prin- 
ciples of morality recognized among civilized nations. 

I am glad to make my own the editorial utterance of 
one of our great dailies: "We favor therefore a flat- 
footed declaration of war upon Germany, rather than 
a semi-evasive recognition that a state of war exists. 
Germany should be arraigned before the world for high 
crimes and misdemeanors and war denounced against 
her for the purpose of punishing her past offences and 
restraining her in the future. ' ' 



11 



I cannot undertake a recapitulation of the infamous 
crimes that the Government of Germany has connnitted 
against mankind — the violation of treaties, the burning 
and looting of cities, the poisoning of wells, the whole- 
sale murder of inoffensive civilians, both men and 
women, the atrocious Zeppelin raids upon undefended 
cities, the atrocious and heartless cruelties connected 
with her submarine warfare, the sinking of hospital 
ships, the robbery and spoliation of inoffensive citi- 
zens, the deportation of thousands of women and girls 
into atrocious slavery, her connivance at the immense 
Armenian massacres. To all this she has now added 
the immeasurable atrocities which have accompanied 
the evacuation of territory in Northern France. She 
has been guilty of a vandalism that has scarcely a 
parallel in all history, and the devastations that her 
soldiers have committed under orders of her officers, 
have to a large extent had no relation to military ne- 
cessity or military advantage. They have fulfilled the 
description which the Prophet gave of old of the in- 
vasion of a ruthless army: ''The land was as the Gar- 
den of Eden before them and behind them a desolate 
wilderness." (Joel.) The human savagery exhibited 
by the German Armies in this retreat reveals the black- 
ness of the German soul. All their frightfulness in 
Belgium and Servia was a minor thing compared to the 
unspeakable frightfulness of their devastation, liter- 
ally their destruction, of the fair fields of France, in 
their recent retreat. No wonder an editor in our sec- 
ular press has exclaimed, ''Our duty to God and man is 
to aid in the chastisement of the war monster. Let us 
join in punishing the guilty and securing such compen- 
sation as can be wrested from Germany for her 
victims." 

~ I have no hesitation then in saying that the voice of a 
just God summons us to this War and that it is in the 
highest sense of the word a Holy War. The people of 
the Middle Ages flocked to the standard of the Cross 
for what seemed to them a holy purpose — the rescue of 
the Holy Sepulchre from the defiling touch of the un- 
believer. But, my friends, those Crusades shrink into 
insignificance compared with the crusade to which we 



12 



are summoned at the present moment. It is not to 
rescue a sepulchre from the hands of the Mohammed- 
ans to which we are called, but to rescue brave and 
noble peoples from the unspeakable cruelty and brutal- 
ity of a powerful confederation of nations marshalled 
under the Prussian Eagle — nay, to rescue the civilized 
world itself from the talons of a monster more merci- 
less than the eagle towards his prey. The cruelty, the 
rapacity, the savagery of Prussianism is not a matter 
of opinion, or the indictment of prejudice, but a hideous 
fact which we have seen with our own eyes during the 
last two years or more. No words can tell its abomi- 
nation. Indeed, the principle is avowed in so many 
words by eminent representatives of the German Em- 
pire — thus Maximilian Harden has declared : ' ' Every 
means will be enthusiastically employed against her 
enemies by the German people. We will go back to the 
times of savagery when man was a wolf for his fellow- 
man." (Quoted by Le Temps, Feb. 9, 1916.) 

Will America halt and hesitate in the presence of 
such an issue as this ? Will she listen to the siren song 
of the pacifists who have flocked to Washington in such 
numbers at this present moment, with the purpose of 
weakening the resolve of our legislators to vindicate 
the honor of the United States, — ^nay, to defend our 
rights and liberties against insolent aggression and 
outrageous invasion? Will she not have discernment 
to perceive that this pacifist movement is inspired 
partly by disloyalty to the Republic and organized by 
the spies and plotters who are paid to do the bidding of 
Germany in our midst? I do not deny that some of 
these preachers of "peace at any price", some of these 
advocates of national dishonor, are well meaning en- 
thusiasts, misguided theorists, whose judgment has 
gone astray and whose brains are so bewildered that 
they can no longer recognize the path of national duty 
and national honor, though it stretches out plainly be- 
fore them — ^but I tell you, my friends, the great body 
of these pacifists are the secret agents of Prussianism, 
and that procession of pacifists which was to march the 
streets of Washington tomorrow, should have been 
marshalled under the flag of Prussia. 



13 



They are flooding the press with advertisements ap- 
pealing to the women of the country to save their sons, 
their husbands and their sweethearts from the carnage 
of the battlefield —seeking to blind them to the real 
issue, which is brave resistance to tyranny, or cowardly 
submission to foreign dictation — courageous battle 
side by side with the conquering legions of the Allies 
against the forces of tyranny and barbarism, or craven 
submission now at the cost of a far more terrible con- 
flict with little hope of success in the years to come ! 

I, for my part, do not believe that the spirit of 
patriotism and liberty is dead in this land of our love. 
No, the American people will demand of their legis- 
lators that they take up the gage of battle which has 
been insolently thrown down to us by this arrogant 
power that seeks to dominate the earth, and that we 
will hasten to place ourselves by the side of those 
gallant peoples who have now for more than two years 
been fighting our battles in Europe and Asia,— resolved 
that all the immense resources of our great Eepublic 
shall be employed to turn the scale of this world war, 
so that complete victory shall crown the efforts of the 
Allies, and Prussian militarism shall be crushed, and 
the German people, as well as the other peoples of 
Europe, delivered from the yoke of the Hohenzollern 
dynasty. 



